My faith is in our youth.

According to a recent Gallup poll (http://www.worldreligionnews.com/issues/can-religion-solve-worlds-p...) article the majority of Americans still believe that religion can solve the world's problems. Just looking at the Middle East makes me wonder how in the hell that is possible. After reviewing the polling data it is obvious that the key to continued secularization of our society is education and our youth. As our younger generations continue to increase their understanding of our universe the relevance of religion will hopefully continue to diminish. My hope is that these enlightened individuals will steer our civilization away from religious thought and concentrate on stabilizing our planet environmentally and halt the bloodshed of war. One obstacle is that the religious are more prone to procreate in numbers and subsequently indoctrinate their offspring. Unfortunately the reality is that most atheists/secularists are not interested necessarily in having four or five kids, with good reason. This makes it all the more important to establish a secular educational system that teaches the value of logical thinking & reasoning skills, and to question the validity of outdated information. Today's youth seems much less willing to accept outright what their parents and grandparents told them about religion. We are becoming less gullible and naive with each succeeding generation and less willing to drink the kool-aid that is religion. I hope this trend continues for there is little time to waste.

Replies to This Discussion

I tend to agree with you. I believe the trend is already evident. I am 23 years old and I find that even many of the religious people that I know around my age group have, for example, a far more accepting view of LGBT community than the older generation. They may still be religious but I believe this thing will take baby steps and the view of equality for all is certainly a byproduct of the secularization of the US.

Your generation is more open-minded about cultural issues and less prone to be critical of lifestyle choices; whereas my generation (Baby Boomer) is set in their ways and not very flexible. Personally, I have changed a great deal in the past five to ten years, hopefully in a good way, but I am in the minority here in the South. Peace.

Living in overwhelmingly Catholic Poland I have seen a surprisingly rapid change in the opinions of young people. Even with their, considerable, power and influence the church has been unable to silence the various scandals of recent years. They set themselves up as the defender of 'morals' and have now been shown to be anything but 'moral'. Those who previously just followed the church because 'it's what everyone else does/it's part of our tradition' have started to actually ask questions and, as Jim Jefferies said, 'Questions are like cancer to religion'. I guess things are slower to change in the US with so many different denominations. It's easy to just use the 'not a True Christian' argument and/or switch to a different church with more moderate views.

What are your thoughts on homeschooling? In my area there are a number of religious people (Mennonites, for instance) who teach at home. Their children still have to pass the required periodic state tests but I don't think HOW to think is at the top of there curriculum.

For me, homeschooling is not financially feasible. My wife and I need to work full-time just to make our household run. So I haven't looked too deeply into it. I have all the usual concerns about it: socialization and such. If those concerns could be addressed and it were financially possible, I might like to try it.

The handful of people I know who have done it did so because they couldn't afford xian academy tuition and even those schools were not religious enough (or the right flavor I should say) for their taste. My impression is that is the case with most home-schoolers, but I have no data to base that on other than my own experience.

I'd like to homeschool at least until highschool. I'm confident having a 1 teacher to 2 or 3 students ratio will be better than 1 teacher to 30+ students like in schools in Australia (despite the fact I have no formal training in education).